All Fingers and Thumbs

  It's been the most beautiful day. Our local bread shop reopened on Thursday after their August holiday shut down and I felt the urge to walk over this morning and gather some of their goodies. Such a unique bread, it was so satisfying to bite into it again after a month off! I love that they shut down though, sort of old-fashioned/ new-fashioned. It feels good to me to see small businesses model sustainable ways of living, balancing life and work. It breathes hope in to my wish that we all start to live a bit more like this.  It is a lovely September day, mellow feeling, perfect for a little wander with treats in store and a pop to the post office to send a long overdue package. Simple trips out like this are so precious to me. Solo time to sink in to the present, gently occupied my mind doesn't get up to so much mischief! Under the soft grey sky I meandered, delighting in signs of autumn peeking out at me from the hedges and edges. I saw a garden FILLED with french marigold...

 That blue sky in the top photo is well hidden right now. The candles are on, incense lit and the sound of rain pounding down out side makes me smile. Feet in slippers I'm glad for the cosy space here at my desk. I'm a creature of the twixt and tween. These seasons around the full show of summer and winter make me happiest. I'm glad we roll gently through them in England, and I'm capturing all the magical shifts I can. Autumnal themes are creeping in to my sketchbooks as well as my camera, watercolour mushrooms courtesy of a great tutorial from Shayda Campbell.  I'm excited for what comes forth in these next few months. This gathering up of the year before we settle in to winter feels magical to me always and this year perhaps even more so. Spring was so changed by lockdown I'm hoping for lots more wandering adventures this autumn. With waterproof to hand perhaps!

I think a lot about what it means to listen. To listen to our selves. Do you hear conflicting things? I feel like moment by moment one self speaks and then the next. I assign them names: heart, ego, Nigel. Physical personas: wise woman of the woods, puppy,  unicorn. Sometimes they come together in a wise council. Of course I like them to be sitting around a round table, a la the Knights of Camelot, or gathered in a meadow, held within a fairy ring. More often they seem to wandering around on their own, just saying confusing things.  I say that the heart or soul voice is quiet but is it? Is it actually just overlaid by distractions. Its messages this year have been consistent: be soft, go gently, let delight lead, sit quietly, look around you. Often it feels in conflict with what the world asks of me. Or more accurately what I believe the world is asking of me. What I interpret. What I'm conditioned to believe. I'm making a series of little cards to capture some of what I hear ...

"Our stories and images and sounds create, explicate, or point to a deeper meaning that helps us receive, celebrate and be fed by beauty and bear what is hard. And if the meaning revealed by the process of creating is often more implicit than explicit, still it does not fail to feed us. Because what it feeds is not our minds but our souls and souls do not need explanations; they need only to touch and sit in the centre of the meaning that is enfolded in being..." Oriah Mountain Dreamer  Earlier this year I participated in  Meghan's delightful Horsefeathers course which was an utter revelation. She shared the quote above with us and encouraged us in a practice of showing up creatively that has really unlocked my ability to make things joyfully without worrying about whether they (or I...) am good enough. I'm so grateful for that piece of the puzzle which has really shifted my daily experience and allowed a lot more whimsy to flit through th...

Over a year since my last confession but I'm at the start of three weeks of whimsy! Led by delight I have an urge to write here. Who am I to argue? All this whimsical wandering is facilitated by furlough leave from work, I wonder how many other dusty blogs will see a little more love during this coronavirus pandemic? The images here are some of my creations from the Spirit Wings painting course offered on a pay what you can basis at the moment by Kelly Rae Roberts . What an utter delight it has been. Full of inspiration, an exploration of what creativity is and a whole framework for playing and opening a channel to listen to your intuition/highest self/ the Universe. It's been an unexpected shot of pure magic. Something that I have been craving and trying to find my way back to these past couple of years. "Rediscover your worth, your potential, your creative spirit and then go and fly on its wings to places you w...

I feel like this world breaks my heart about a hundred different ways every week at the moment. The horrors we witness, and then up through the cracks of the latest tragedy, the tender shoots, the beautiful ways humans reach out to one another to help each other tentatively move forward again. Those of us still blessed or cursed or blessed to be here. I hear an internal narrative that says it's all too much for me to take in. I am challenging that, staying present for the reality of it, mindfully, finding personal stories behind platitudes and headlines, understanding more about how we all process and grieve and flail. I look for the moon. I knit. I think about the equinox. I stop and smell primroses. I say thank you to my toes. And I love, the best I can, as many as I can.                                                             ...

Somewhere in the middle of last month, while working through my initial reactions to the conversations about racism in the knitting community, I saw the danger of avoiding the Political. In the words of others, who didn't want their false picture of a cosy community disrupted, I saw a reflection of myself.  In the last couple of years I have tried to shut out the world when I haven't liked what I am seeing. When I sought to avoid the Political I attempted to also avoid the political. I hadn't fully acknowledged that. I hadn't seen that even being able to attempt to avoid the political, was due to my layers of privilege. If anything, I'd resisted acknowledging it, because I felt like I didn't have the strength to work against the structures that distribute so unfairly. I'll be forever grateful to the women that spoke up, and continue to speak up. Grateful that finally they are being heard more widely, more loudly than before. I'll be forever sorry I ...

I'm afraid to google the term 'rechilding' in case it goes the way it did when I searched for 'adult play' a few years back. Is sex still the most searched for thing on the internet? Hard to remember that when you tend to type in things like 'yoga for sore feet' or 'quince gin recipes'. Anyway, all of that to say that I asked November for a beautiful day, after the first of the month dawned with the lowest of skies. To my delight today could not be more different. Blue skies, bright and warm, so I asked my too often ignored inner child what it wanted to do this morning. Taking a banana smoothie to the park seemed like a very easy request to grant.

 It's a big yawn. A soft exhale. A carefree squawk of laughter. This year has been utterly different from what I hoped and planned for at the start of the year. It's brought many challenges and many unexpected gifts - more often than not out of those challenges. The end of the eternal winter and the start of the spring found me very low and I reached out for help. Antidepressants and counselling. Life rafts that have helped me float on through a year where the physical constraints of my knee injury had taken away two of my greatest balancers: regular yoga classes and long, wonder full rambles. They continue to help me now as I wait for an operation on my knee. Wait and unravel. Slowly slowly. No matter how slowly I think I am going there is a level beneath that my soul craves. Not a standstill but ponderous, languid, incremental. I write this from my room of my own. Feeling a pull back to this virtual space as I seek to kindle sparks of inspiration. The eternal building...

As we descended towards the shortest day I could feel the need to turn within very strongly.  I kept coming back to the image of a mossy hollow. Tucked in the earth, at the roots of a bare tree, a space where I could curl up in to a ball and let the days pass. It sounded soft and comforting, but the slowing has been awkward, and though the body tells me what it needs, keeping the mind, and the world around me to the same pace is always the challenge. As my new knitting project grows, I see the browns and dark greens are like the manifestation of the hollow. Happily a softer, cosier representation. Knitting this wrap is a process that literally helps me create the space I craved. I have been falling home from work and into its embrace all week. The long rows create a rhythm that wasn't in my hands as they scurried at the socks. Warm and safe from epic rains and winds. The hollow is the dip my bum is making in the sofa cushions. I thought I only started on the Orcha...

Today is a classic wet winter Sunday, grey grey with just the slight twist of snowflakes in amongst the rain drops. It's the kind of day that reminds me of teenage doldrums, school tomorrow and cooped up inside. Our house used to have downstairs rooms that all flowed one to another and I'd get trapped either in my bedroom, or out of it, with an armchair full of snoozing Papa between me and wherever I wanted to go. He has always had a lot of back problems and was in such constant pain that waking him from a snooze was a little like waking a bear from hibernation. I guess I have much more empathy for him as I get older and creakier! I'm not having the most fun with some of my body at the moment, I injured my knee in November and rehab is slow, and has felt a bit backwards the last couple of weeks, as I just try and take a short walk on top of the essential steps to get through a day. Still, these days grey out and being sofa bound says craft, craft, craft rather loud...

Sky and mood are both a lot brighter today, though hibernation is definitely not over yet! It was lovely but very chilly in the park today. The trees were filled with long-tailed tits searching for whatever tiny bugs it is that they eat. Their tiny chirrups were the most lovely soundtrack to a beautiful walk, though how they keep their tiny selves warm is beyond me and my six hundred layers. Stitch by stitch I made a sock and got myself through a tough few weeks. Feeling low for a whole host of reasons I'm so glad that I found my way back to knitting on something absorbing. That old sanity saver has really worked its magic again. I know I've still got to make the other sock but I feel like a knitter again. The surest sign that the old addiction is back is that it's only willpower and cold toes that have kept me working on this sock. Suddenly all the dreamy patterns on Ravelry are calling me. I have a hundred different sock patterns I want to start and to t...

I felt the flickers of an old impetus and I cast on some socks just before the Christmas break began and have been cosied up with them whenever possible. They are so delicious. I had to get my Sensational Knitted Socks out to have a clue where to start. I thought I might be in trouble when I need to look up what SSK meant but my hands remembered the long tail cast on, the needles sit just right in my hands and it is so pleasing to watch it grow. Top down, my old favourite construction, there is a rhythm here that is deeply satisfying. I'd forgotten the comments and conversations that knitting socks in particular seem to draw. Can you make me some? (Mostly no, only the most beloveds get hand knits). How long will they take? Followed up by "HOW LONG? and then one of the classics - "You do know you can get a five pack from xxx (insert their favourite shop) for just £x" (always good to know what people spend on socks!)  It's an insight in to how fixated so...

... AUTUMN! Once upon a time I forgot about how delicious autumn was because I was dreading winter, I must be growing up because now I love them both! But especially autumn. Oh the colours. Today the sun is shining and the sky is vibrantly blue, blue in a way you can stare at and fall in to. Blue in a way it doesn't seem in summer because the sun is so strong. So I love the softer sun, the deeper blue, the myriad of colours in the leaves, the lichens, the hedgerow bounty. I love how alive I'm feeling, wrapped in mischief and magic and my new glorious cardigan/coat/garment never to be removed. Happy October! For sure, this is the most magical time of the year.

Yesterday I was introduced to the work of Sharon McErlane and Net of Light  by my lovely Sas , it resonated with me so powerfully and the timing! I am working with Meghan circled with women Returning to the Fire,  and it was one of the moments when you just have absolute faith that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. A moment that I could feel through every cell my connection to the Divine, my oneness with that energy. Purest magic. This morning, out there under my trees, I was thinking about how we shine our lights.... or not. Wondering how we find the beacons among the tides of sleepwalkers. Thinking that if we shy away from showing our true selves we are short changing ourselves and the world. I believe one of the gifts of navigating through darkness is that you can see the closest light to move towards. No matter how small. So here I am being that little light, writing on a blog that not even my Mum reads any more :) . It would be so easy not to post this,...

Not so much progress with the stitching this week. A little more filling in of the bark, a lot of not actually stitching. I've been so tired that making space for even ten minutes of daily craft time has been a stretch. Inspiration required, luckily it's literally on my doorstep! I took a few moments out there with the source today. Through the rain and cold spring is coming. The branches are full of pointy blossom buds, progress with the start of building work is slower than expected so I may yet see this beauty bloom again. I won't be hustling this project along. This makes me notice that though I often bemoan the pace of life I then also often drive things along. I can't bear inefficiency, maybe my definition of efficient just needs a little tweaking.

My beautiful tree has had her branches tossed around by storm Doris this week but is soaking up the sunshine out there today. Such a joyful "after the storm, spring is coming, soon, promise" kind of a day. All of my daily ten minutes craft prescription time plus a fair bit more has been dedicated to tree stitching. On Sunday I just parked my tired, achey little body by the door and stitched until I felt a whole lot better. That restful absorption is the craft therapy magic I think. I love that the trunk is emerging, and is feeling really true to life. She's looking a little more silver birch than plum right now, but the choice of the sideways stitch to reflect the striations of the bark makes me happy.

I have embarked on an epic project. I want to caption this photo "can you tell what it is yet?" with Aussie inflection but that phrase from my childhood is out of bounds these days. Anyway it's a trunk. Of a tree. I'm stitching a portrait of my most beloved plum tree . Everyday companion for the last twelve or so years, we haven't got long left together. I don't think I will see her blossom again. Sob. We're most likely having an extension built. It will be amazing to have more space but I wish, I wish, I WISH I could keep my plum tree too. It won't work. If anything it's too close to the house already and should long ago have been dispatched to the great orchard in the sky. I feel like a sentimental ole fool, what a palaver over a tree. Then I think about how many memories are wrapped around that trunk and nestled in the crook of her branches and it makes a little more sense. I love that tree and enjoy it every single day. I am lucky to have s...

Though the silence here might suggest it, I haven't actually been hibernating all winter. It's kind of been like my  summer  but colder, greyer and damper. A bit like Eeyore in a puddle. As soon as I work out which country has only spring and autumn, I'm there, till then I seek coping strategies. So far this year I've found three great ones - No.1: a day long yoga  retreat  with my regular class teacher. It was such a gentle day I felt lovely and mellow that evening, full of the kindness that I had been cultivating in the practice and then I spent the next four days in bed! It had been coming a while in all honesty, I think the work we did just unlocked a wave of exhaustion and made me face where I really was. The only way is through. No.2:  A seasonal virtual retreat with that bodhisattva of self-care  Mara . Happily a shade less dramatic physically but it has really helped me pick my heart up from the lows of that crash. I signed up ...